When my husband was my fiancee (about 27 years ago) he would say that we were going to buy the old family farm and raise chickens, goats, etc. I would get so furious with him that I would cry! Well here I am on the family farm with chickens, children, dogs, ducks, rabbits, and goats and I'm loving it (mostly.)
I enjoy photography (contact me to order prints), my family, and farm.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

How to Make a Dog Barf and Why I Needed to Know

While the title is light-hearted, I did need this information today and it may have saved my dog's life.

What I learned:

Call your vet first. There are some things that dogs should NOT regurgitate. They'll be able to help with the dosage as well.

Keep Hydrogen Peroxide and a medicine syringe on hand

Preferably a syringe that will hold a tablespoon of medicine. Giving tablespoons of medicine one teaspoon at a time is not fun!

Administer the dosage every 1/2 hour until the dog vomits. The secretary didn't tell us that the first time we called and that could have been a huge problem if I hadn't called back. (Check w/ your vet)

Share this with your friends who own dogs. I've read many books and articles about dogs and had never heard this.

The stupid beginning:
I toasted myself a slice of Ezekiel 4:9 raisin bread for breakfast this morning. It was a new loaf so the crust (which I don't like) was on the end and so I left it out to thaw thinking I could give it to the chickens or the dog later. It's healthy stuff and I wouldn't want to waste it.

So an hour or so later my husband noticed it near the toaster and asked me about it and I explained. So he leaned down to our Jack Russell Terrier, Emily, and offered it to her. She took it and went to find a comfy place to enjoy it. About 15 min later DH asked if she finished it, I said yes, and then he suddenly had a horrified look as he realized that it was RAISIN bread. (Raisins and grapes can kill dogs) We knew that but we just didn't think about the raisins in the bread. We both felt awful. We are very careful to not give her harmful foods even in small amounts and we normally only give her healthy things (fruits and vegetables).

The horrble middle:
We called the vet and they said if (IF?) we were worried about it we could give her Hydrogen Peroxide to induce vomiting or we could wait and see how she felt. (Hmm, we can wait and see if she dies OR make her barf? Let me think.) I was SURE that my husband had heard wrong because I had never heard of using HP to induce vomiting. Well, I was wrong.

My husband ran out to the store (thankfully it wasn't the middle of the night.) I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that the dog was extremely unhappy with the whole process and it broke my heart. I'm still sick to my stomach and exhausted hours later.

The reasonably happy ending:
After several hours she finally regurgitated and it included bread fragments and raisin goo so I'm reasonably sure she's fine. She's also behaving normally and actually seems to have forgiven us.

Here's my little sweety!

My daughter says Emily is cowering in this picture. To me it looks like she's saying
"I love you, may I lie by the fire now?"